Health Promotion: A Complementary Strategy for Stroke Rehabilitation

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Abstract
Health promotion strategies can assist persons who have experienced a stroke to move toward their maximum health potential, even as they live with the impairments imposed by the stroke. Health promotion emphasizes self-care and self-monitoring, developing a healthy lifestyle, moving toward health and well-being (as opposed to avoiding illness), and promoting individual control over behaviors and health. Among persons with disabilities, health promotion behaviors are positively related to physiological and psychological measures of health and quality of life, can prevent secondary disabilities, and promote community reintegration. Health promotion activities can complement traditional rehabilitation therapies as the person with stroke moves toward a state of health by enhancing awareness of opportunities for health, facilitating behavior change, and establishing the value of a supportive environment.